Up and Running After taking a pratfall in '99, the Broncos dusted themselves off and are playing like champs again

He had a gun for an arm, a sniper's eye and a silver and blackjersey. If he only had a brain. An hour before the OaklandRaiders' game against the Denver Broncos last Oct. 10, aspectator with severe anger-management issues stood up in hisseat behind the south end zone and fired a battery at Broncoscoach Mike Shanahan. The Energizer sailed 15 yards and smackedShanahan in the back of the head, and though the blow nearlyknocked the coach unconscious, he continued to supervise histeam's pregame warmups. "I was seeing stars," Shanahan recalledlast week as he prepared to return to the scene of the crime."But I knew that if I would've turned around, the Raiders fanswould've gone nuts, so I waited awhile and then casually pickedup the battery. Luckily it was only a double A, or I might nothave been in such great shape."

That cowardly act wasn't enough to short-circuit the NFL'sresident mastermind, and conventional methods aren't doing thetrick, either. On Sunday, Shanahan strode back onto the Oaklandturf and did what he always does against the Raiders--messmercilessly with their heads. Following their coach's strategicblueprint to perfection, the Broncos rolled to a 33-24 victorythat reestablished the former NFL kingpins as, at the very least,the class of the AFC West. Shanahan, an erstwhile Oakland coachand a Raider hater of the first degree, is 10-1 against the teamfrom which he was divorced bitterly 11 years ago, but he'sfocused on bigger and better things. "I've got the same goalsI've always had," says Shanahan, who led Denver to Super Bowltriumphs following the 1997 and '98 seasons. "We've had a lot ofpeople question us the last couple of years, but these playershave responded to the challenge, and they're thinking big."

While Shanahan's bunch hasn't yet regained the swagger it had inthe waning years of John Elway's career, the spring in theBroncos' step is increasing by the week. When you're scoring 36.3points a game without your best player (injured halfback TerrellDavis), and when his replacement (Mike Anderson, a rookie whobegan the season as a third-stringer) ransacks Oakland for 187yards on 32 carries, you have ample reason to believe. One othernumber stood out after Sunday: The Broncos (2-1), who dropped a41-36 thriller to the Rams in their opener, are above .500 forthe first time since Super Bowl XXXIII in January 1999. "We'regood, bro," defensive lineman Mike Lodish said after the game."Just because John Elway's not here and we've lost some otherAll-Pros, it doesn't mean we're going away. Even against St.Louis, we didn't feel the Rams were that much better than us--ifat all."

If the fact that a Denver team run by Shanahan is a bona fideSuper Bowl contender seems like less than startling news,consider how dramatically the Broncos' fortunes have changed in11 months. When they last visited Oakland, the battery thatcaromed off Shanahan's noggin was a harsh metaphor for the firehe was under in Denver. His first post-Elway season had been onegiant headache from the outset, what with Davis's season-endingknee injury in the fourth game, new quarterback Brian Griese'sshakiness and an 0-4 start that caused major locker roomdissension.

Now the Good Ship Shanahan is back on cruise control. With threeAFC West teams--the Kansas City Chiefs (1-2), the defendingdivision-champion Seattle Seahawks (1-2) and the San DiegoChargers (0-3)--seemingly dead in the water, Sunday's showdownwith the undefeated Raiders had strong ramifications. "This wasbig, and our coaches deserve a lot of credit, because in ourorganization they're almost more important than the players,"said Broncos wideout Rod Smith, who caught seven passes for 63yards. "The game plans this season have been nearly perfect. Allweek [the coaches] talked about how we'd wear them down in thefourth quarter, and that's exactly what happened."

Siphoning the will out of Oakland used to seem like stealing toShanahan, but these are not your big brother's Raiders, who formuch of the '90s were a talented ensemble that too often playedlike the Tin Man. Since Jon Gruden took over as coach in 1998 andbegan weeding out me-first players--and especially since lastseason, when fierce veteran Rich Gannon stepped in atquarterback--Oakland has developed a commendable comeback spirit."Pretty freaky, huh?" fullback Jon Ritchie said last Friday as hesat in his Berkeley home strumming the Guns 'N Roses tunePatience on an acoustic guitar. "It all stems from Rich Gannonand his relentless pursuit of perfection. I liken it to the movieAlien. Let's just say the big mother alien, who we'll call RichGannon, has implanted all these little aliens, us, with anoverwhelming sense of positivity."

But on Sunday these extraterrestials were spacey beyond belief.The Raiders alienated their first home sellout crowd in threeyears by fumbling on their first two plays from scrimmage andfalling behind 17-0. When Griese lofted a one-yard touchdown passto fullback Howard Griffith on the second play of the secondquarter, the Broncos looked capable of scoring 24/7. Which wasprecisely what the scoreboard said at the time. But Oakland hadentered the game fresh off an amazing comeback in Indianapolisthe previous week--having overcome a 21-0 deficit to beat thefavored Colts 38-31--and the Raiders seemed determined to repeatthe feat. They roared back and drew even midway through thesecond period when Randy (Air) Jordan blocked Tom Rouen's punt,recovered the ball on the run and flopped into the end zone.

Gannon marched Oakland to the Denver six on the openingpossession of the third period, but linebacker John Mobleyintercepted his pass to Andre Rison, and the momentum shifted.Three short field goals by Joe Nedney provided the victorymargin, but this game was won at the line of scrimmage, just asShanahan had planned it. Shortly after taking over as coach in'95, Shanahan, noting Denver's 1-11 record against Oakland overthe past six seasons, told his startled players, "These guysthink you're a bunch of pansies"--actually, he used a stronger pword. Now it's clear who the aggressors are. "We took the heartfrom them when it counted," Lodish said, "on both sides of theball."

Though they have one of the NFL's lightest offensive lines, theBroncos have been clearing out real estate like ambitiousDenver-area developers. The Broncos have plenty of talent upfront--Tom Nalen may be the league's best center, left tackle TonyJones is an underrated standout, and right tackle Matt Lepsis isa nimble-footed technician--but the unit's unlikely star is leftguard Mark Schlereth, who might as well have a hospital braceletpermanently affixed to his wrist. After experiencing soreness andswelling in his left knee during training camp, Schlereth, 34,had arthroscopic surgery. If the first cut is the deepest, the27th incision of Schlereth's career (and the 13th on his leftknee) was the sweetest. "They removed a piece of bone the size ofmy thumb, and my range of motion improved drastically," Schlerethsays. "The last seven years it's been at about 85 percent, butnow it's like 105, or 110 if someone's pushing it. I can take amore balanced stance, and I'm probably playing better than I havein a long time."

Throw in Griffith's punishing lead blocks, Griese's pinpointpassing, the acrobatic athleticism of wideout Ed McCaffrey (sevencatches for 92 yards and a touchdown) and righteous play-callingby Shanahan and offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, and theBroncos are tough to stop. Having a star running back doesn'thurt, either. But even without Davis, who missed his secondconsecutive game after spraining his left ankle in the loss tothe Rams, Denver is running wild. Stud halfbacks don't grow ontrees, but apparently they roam the Rocky Mountains insignificant numbers. When Davis, a former sixth-round draft pick,went down last season, Olandis Gary, a rookie fourth-roundselection, emerged as a 1,000-yard rusher. After Gary tore theACL in his right knee against St. Louis, Anderson, a sixth-roundpick, stepped in and has rambled for 318 yards in two starts.

"I don't think you can be a bum and walk in off the street andget 131 yards," Davis said after watching Anderson scorch theAtlanta Falcons in Denver's 42-14 romp on Sept. 10. "Mike's agood back, and people aren't giving him enough credit." ThatAnderson flew under the radar is not a total shock, consideringthat he is a 27-year-old rookie who eschewed high school footballto be a drummer in the Fairfield (S.C.) Central marching band."We were one of those wild bands that did those crazy danceroutines at halftime--to M.C. Hammer, Bobby Brown and whateverelse was popular," Anderson says. "I'd gone out for football inninth grade, but I was a bit on the heavy side, and the coachesput me at offensive line, which I wanted no part of. So I justwalked away."

After high school Anderson spent four years in the Marine Corps,including a two-month stint in Somalia in 1994. "All the other[peacekeeping] troops had pulled out, but some of us stayed incase anything came about," Anderson recalls. "It was hostile overthere, and I didn't know if I'd make it back. We'd go on nightpatrols, and we didn't know who was an enemy and who wasn't. Iended up talking to a lot of [Somalians], and I felt so sorry forthem. They had no running water or adequate medical facilities.They were relying on survival instincts and living day-to-day."

Upon his return to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., Andersonjoined the base's football team and caught the eye of Bob Turley,a retired Marine colonel who coached at Mount San Jacinto JuniorCollege, 70 miles away. Turley asked him to enroll and come outfor football, but, Anderson says, "I didn't think I could competeat that level. After I was discharged, I went home to SouthCarolina, but he kept calling. Finally, I just looked at it as achance to get an education and flew back out." Andersonultimately earned a scholarship to Utah, where he became anall-conference back in '98 and '99.

The 6-foot, 235-pound Anderson lacks the burst and brilliantcut-back ability of Davis, but he's a powerful, decisive runnerwho does not lack for toughness. He was unperturbed by Sunday'swithering heat, flashing back to his boot camp days on ParrisIsland, S.C., where, he says, he "used to go on 25-mile walkswhen it was hot and muggy with 60 pounds of gear on my back,chanting the whole time." Anderson also shrugged off the splitlip he suffered on a first-quarter tackle, which made him theday's second-bloodiest Bronco, behind Griese. The third-yearquarterback completed 21 of 31 passes for 213 yards and twotouchdowns, impressing his teammates by hanging tough aftersuffering a gash to the chin (requiring 10 stitches after thegame) in the second period. On the next play Griese botched ahandoff, and defensive end Regan Upshaw recovered the fumble,producing Denver's lone turnover of 2000. But at game's end, ashe walked off the field with his neck and jersey smeared withblood, Griese, once dismissed by some teammates as aloof, wasclearly the guy in charge--not to mention the league'shighest-rated quarterback.

"The dude's amazing," Smith said of Griese. "The way he dedicatedhimself this off-season, I wouldn't be surprised if he threw for5,000 yards. When Ed [McCaffrey] and I worked out with him thisspring, he had a twinkle in his eye, and he won everybody'srespect with the way he asserted himself in minicamps." AddedLepsis: "Compared to the way Brian was last year, it's like nightand day."

Night and day blended into one in the wee hours of Sunday morningwhen the Broncos were rousted by a 1:30 a.m. fire alarm at theirhotel near the San Francisco airport. "I'm sure Al Davis set itoff," one Denver player said jokingly, referring to the Raiders'owner and Shanahan's longtime nemesis.

Whoever was responsible for the false alarm, it turned out to bea futile gesture. The Broncos' wake-up call came long ago.

COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK UP AND RUNNING Brian Griese (right) and the Broncos have reversed their fortunes by Michael Silver [T of C]COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAD MANGIN NEW HORSES Anderson and Griese (14) have taken over where Davis and Elway left off.COLOR PHOTO: BRAD MANGIN HIGH-RISE McCaffrey was up to his old tricks, with seven catches for 97 yards and a score.COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK LATE BLOOMER Anderson chose the band over football in high school, and then spent four years in the Marine Corps.COLOR PHOTO: JOHN W. MCDONOUGH BLINDSIDED Linebacker Al Wilson (56) and the Broncos roughed up Gannon, who has brought a never-say-die attitude to the Raiders.

Anderson was unperturbed by the withering heat, flashing back tohis boot camp days on Parris Island, S.C.

"Compared to the way Brian was last year, it's like night andday," Lepsis says of Griese, once considered aloof by someplayers.